All the Truth You Can Believe
by avanti90
Summary: After the events of The Warrior's Apprentice, Gregor has an apology to make.


The Emperor's chamber in Vorhartung Castle was silent as the witnesses filed out of the door. Gregor sat alone at the head of the long table, his eyes downcast.

The images of the past hour kept repeating in his mind. He could see, as clearly as he had seen him in that moment, Miles standing in the doorway to the council chamber - _Miles_, so small, so broken, so incandescent with anger. And Vordrozda, drawing a deadly weapon from his robe, all his cool reserve shattered by venomous fury. In that instant Gregor had felt as if a veil had been lifted from his eyes, and he had seen his friend for what he was at last. A traitor. A murderer. He had been playing Gregor for a pawn all along.

And then Gregor had seen himself with equal clarity, and seen nothing better.

Count Vorkosigan's eyes were still blazing with fierce pride as he watched his son leave. Yes, thought Gregor, Miles deserved that pride. Miles had commanded an army in battle. Miles had demolished Vordrozda's conspiracy in one minute flat. If Miles was a pawn, he'd talk both sides into a peace treaty, rewrite the rules, and take over the chessboard in five moves.

_Gregor_ had been a perfect pawn.

"Wait," he said softly.

Count Vorkosigan paused before the open door. Then he closed it and turned to face Gregor. The tension in the room, which had abated earlier, suddenly returned in full and stifling force.

Gregor took a deep breath. "You were right," he said. "Vordrozda was a fraud and a traitor, and I should never have listened to a word of his lies. I have been an idiot, sir, and I owe you an apology for it. I'm sorry."

He knew that Aral had every right to be furious with him. Gregor had insulted his honor far too deeply for it to be easily forgotten. But before Miles and Ivan and two other counts, what could he have done but brush it off? Now, in private, let him say whatever he wished. Gregor would take it.

"Never mind," said Aral calmly. "We all make mistakes, sire. No one was hurt."

"Only by sheer luck," Gregor pointed out. "Fifteen minutes, and I would have ordered Miles' execution. And you would have been next." He swallowed. "You saw through him right in the beginning. I should have listened. I should never have trusted him."

He could see it clearly now, all the lies and insinuations beneath the fawning compliments. He'd been so willing to listen, so irritated with all the old men ordering him around. All his life he had been served by the Regent's men. He'd been so pleased to find a man loyal to _him_.

"I know how it feels," said Aral at last, and his voice was strangely, inexplicably, gentle. "I have known men like him before. Men who are infections of the mind, who entrap you with false words and false promises, all the while feeding on your soul and your honor." He hesitated for a moment, some old shadow falling over his eyes. "If it is any comfort," he said, "you have done vastly better than I did at your age. The people around me were not so fortunate as to escape unscathed."

Gregor was startled out of his misery for a moment. He'd had several versions of those stories poured into his ears, by Vordrozda and others, each one worse than the last.

"Whatever he told you was not worse than the truth." said Aral grimly. "Ges Vorrutyer could have made Vordrozda seem an amateur. He was a sadist as well as a manipulator. There was nothing he enjoyed more than having power over others, and using that power to cause pain. And he was my friend, or so I thought. He had… a great deal of influence over me. When I came to know about my wife's affairs, it was Ges who encouraged me to challenge her lovers to a duel. And I listened to him."

"You-" Gregor choked. "But- Vordrozda said…"

"That they killed each other? No. I murdered them, one after the other. The first fought willingly. The second knelt at my feet and begged me to spare his life. I slew him in cold blood. No, I didn't murder her," he added, correctly interpreting Gregor's horrified expression. "But it was no less my fault for that. And then I spent the next two years sleeping with Ges."

He turned away from Gregor's appalled face. "He wanted to make me into an imitation of himself, and I allowed him to do so. Every sordid, soul-destroying thing you can imagine – if he wanted it, I did it. I gave him my trust. I gave him… everything. By the time I pulled out of it, it was too late. I had already disgraced my honor and my family's name, and there was nothing I could do to make up for it."

Gregor felt as if his brain had been switched off. It was impossible to imagine. He had never known the younger Aral Vorkosigan, and the image of the great Lord Regent as a depraved murderer simply didn't work. All he could think was that this story could have killed Aral more easily than any false treason charge. After all that had happened, Aral was placing his life in Gregor's hands.

Aral was still standing before him in parade rest, looking down at the carpeted floor, not meeting his eyes. "You did," Gregor managed at last. "You did make up for it, Aral. You did enough."

He did not expect it to make a difference; it was hardly likely that Aral would care about his opinion now, if he ever had. But Aral's shoulders relaxed slowly, and some of the tension in his spine seemed to drain away, as if he had released some invisible burden. "I'm sorry," he said. "But I thought you should know that you are hardly the first person on Barrayar to be led astray by bad company. As hopeless as it may seem, it is possible to survive this."

"He was the only person who ever treated me like I _deserved _to be the Emperor," Gregor mumbled. "He gave me more than mere courtesy. He gave me respect, or a good imitation of it. No one else ever did that. No, don't apologize," he added as Aral began to speak. "You were right."

"Is that why you trusted him?" asked Aral. "Did you care so much what they thought?"

Gregor looked up at him through narrowed eyes. "Of course I cared. How can it not matter to me, if my subjects think I'm unfit to govern them?" _If they turn around and look at you every time I give them an order? _He didn't say that aloud. It was the longest civil conversation they'd had in months; he wasn't going to turn it into another blazing row.

"It doesn't," said Aral, meeting Gregor's eyes frankly. "It took me years to understand, after Ges, but what you truly are matters far more than what other people think you are. If every man on Barrayar believed you unfit to be the Emperor – which is not the case, by the way – it would not change for one moment the fact that their hands are between yours, and their lives belong to you, and you _are_ the Emperor." He moved closer, his voice dropping to a whisper. "All the flattery in the world cannot change one word of the truth, sire. What the rest of the world knows about you is merely your reputation. The truth that you know about yourself – that is your honor. And the only person who can make a difference to it is you."

Gregor stared up at him. His honor. And what had he made of his honor?

He had sworn an oath on that honor, to preserve peace in his empire, and he had brought that empire to the brink of disaster. He had vowed to uphold truth and justice, and he had allowed himself to be led by flatterers and sycophants. And before all that he had sworn an oath to the man before him, to reward service with protection, loyalty with justice. If he had betrayed any trust, any oath, it was surely that one, the first one. He'd placed Aral in a position where he would have broken either his heart or his honor, and Gregor didn't know which would have destroyed him more surely.

Gregor leaned forward against the polished wood and rested his face in his hands, abandoning all pretence of Imperial composure. "My honor," he said at long last, when he finally trusted himself to speak, "is possibly the only thing in Vorbarr Sultana more tattered than my reputation now."

Distantly, he heard Aral's steps coming around the table, felt Aral's hand rest tentatively on the heavy gold braid covering his shoulder. "It hurts," he said when Gregor didn't pull away. "I know, boy. I've been there. You made mistakes. You were betrayed by someone you trusted, someone you cared about. But it's not the end of the world."

_You were betrayed too,_ thought Gregor. "How did you do it?" he wondered. "When you lost your honor - how did you go on, afterwards?"

"I didn't exactly go on," admitted Aral. "I staggered on in a drunken haze. My strategy, if you can call it that, was to keep on drinking until I forgot. It was typically Vorish, and remarkably unsuccessful."

"Nobody's going to let _me_ drink myself into oblivion," Gregor reminded him.

"I wasn't recommending it," Aral pointed out in a dry voice. "It doesn't work. I've tried often enough. Your honor can grow back, it can be given back to you by those who love you – but you can't erase the scars any more than you can change the past. None of us can do that. We bear it and we go on. We must, sire. We're Vor."

_You're Vor, _thought Gregor. _I just happen to have three letters in front of my name. _"How?" he whispered into his palms. "I'm not good enough for this job, and you know it, Aral. I can't go on pretending to be something I'm not."

"No," Aral agreed. "But you can be better than you were before. It won't be easy, but you can go on. You can free Simon, and end this trial, and learn from your mistakes. Next time, you can guard your honor, and your reputation will take care of itself. If your people see that you care for them – and believe me, sire, they do see it – they will come to care for you."

"And what about you?" asked Gregor in a low voice. "After all I've said and done to you, and Miles?"

Gregor held his breath in the silence that followed. He'd lost his honor, and there was nothing he could do about that - but he hadn't realized until now how frightened he was, that he might have lost something almost as important, whose value he hadn't realized until he had thrown it away.

"Gregor," said Aral, very softly. "It's over. Barrayar is safe from Vordrozda's schemes. Miles is safe, you are safe, and by some miracle even that idiot Ivan managed to be safe. That's all that matters to me." His grip tightened on Gregor's shoulder, firm and strong. "I nearly lost one son to a traitor's hand this morning," he whispered. "I won't lose the other to my own pride."

Gregor looked up, hardly daring to believe his ears. But he knew it was the truth; it wasn't fear, or flattery; simply the truth, like a breath of fresh air after months of false comfort. He swallowed hard. "Thank you," he said, unable to find adequate words. "I… Thank you."

Aral gave him a firm nod, a familiar gesture that reassured Gregor more than words. Somehow, there was no need to say anything. It was all right.

For the first time in years, Gregor couldn't feel resentful of his Regent, or any of the old men who treated him like a pampered child and looked to Aral for their orders. He knew now that they had been right about him all along. He _had_ been an idiot, to think that he could demand their respect as a birthright. The only people who would admire him for free were those like Vordrozda. He would have to earn it.

Aral was right. He would have to go on. He would have to start again, from scratch. And he couldn't do that alone.

"This won't happen again," Gregor promised.

"No," Aral agreed. "We won't let it."

Gregor pushed back his chair and stood up. He could see Aral's spine stiffening as he did so, his posture changing subtly. "I need you where you are," he said, meeting Aral's eyes firmly. "Barrayar needs an Emperor who can face reality. I need one person near me who will always give me the truth, even when I don't want to hear it."

He held out a hand. "We can start over," he offered. "If you will."

There was a long pause. Then Aral's weathered hand engulfed his, and Aral offered him a flicker of a smile. "As you wish, sire."

For a moment, Gregor saw respect in his eyes, and it was real. And nothing Vordrozda had ever said had made him feel the way it did.

Together, they walked out to face the Council of Counts.


End file.
